Well...a lot. That "free" trial of resveratrol suddenly turns into a recurring charge of $80 or more on customers' credit card bills. The free trial is 19 days, All this is explained, of course: in the fine print, on a separate page that most customers, blinded by the word "free," ignore. Arnold Diaz of New York's Fox 5 spoke to some victims of this particular scheme.
This scheme is remarkably similar to its cousins the "free" credit report and the acai berry free trial. On their sites and on ad banners, resveratrol peddlers often claim that their products were endorsed by Dr. Mehmet Oz, health adviser to Oprah Winfrey's audience. Concerned that consumers are being lured in to buy a product with questionable benefits and even more questionable billing practices using his image, Dr. Oz, along with Oprah's Harpo Productions, are suing many of the peddlers of resveratrol. You can read the suit here as a PDF download. The collection of screen shots is particularly dismaying.
In addition to using Dr. Oz's image, FOX 5 says resveratrol sellers also set up fake clinical study web sites (with a disclaimer that says the study is "fictional" at the bottom) and fake news report web sites. Ironically, when commercial news sites publish their stories about these schemes online, guess whose ads come up alongside them?
Meanwhile, we'll stick to getting our resveratrol the old-fashioned way.
Free Trial Scam [Fox 5]
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If they would just use a little restraint and common sense (cents) they could save themselves a lot of dough, grief and years of psychotherapy.
There would then be no need for products such as Resveratrol or Vioxx for that matter.
]]>@treimel: I thought there were substantial published articles in peer-reviewed journals showing many health benefits about reservatol. At least it's something that legitimate nutrition majors are learning extensively about.
Reversing the aging process and promoting weight-loss? Well, those claims I haven't seen sufficient evidence. At best, if taken over long periods of time, my understanding is that it helps slow the aging process and reduces the risk of some types of disease.
Of course, more studies need to be done - especially with people.
]]>If Pfizer gave them enough money, the FDA would approve cocaine.
]]>@nstonep: African or European crickets? I'm not paying top dollar for no stinkin' African crickets.
]]>New Reversitol! Take back those embarrassing moments in your life with ease. Regret the first person you slept with? Regret your children? Regret falling for that scam? Now, you don't have to with Reversitol!
Just one easy dose* will cure you any and all regrets!
warning: dosage is absorbed anally through a suppository, and is equal to three bottles of pure morphine. Reversitol will kill you.
]]>Resveratrol is a gamble but Dr. Oz didn't make it up. There are a number of non-human scientific studies that show very positive results and some human studies are going on now. If people want to take the risk on such a supplement they should be allowed to.
]]>@UCLAri:
But why even worry about authority arguments here? I don't care if he's secretly an android sent from the future or got his medical degree from Harvard or a ctraker jacbox--the real point is that there are no real studies supporting the bulk of his claims. It's the double-blind studies (or lack therof) that convince me, not qualifications.
]]>Yeah, what a jackass move by that Dr. Oz - hitting the scammers where it hurts to prevent this from happening. He should be as cool as people who say things like, "that's what you get for believing everything you read, sucker. Now follow my new meme."
Did it ever occur to you that these claims aren't followed by the people that religiously follow Dr. Oz/Oprah/Dr. Phil/CNN? Because those individuals already know that these products weren't endorsed by their "idols."
They're trying to sucker the people that rarely, if ever, watch those shows, but are aware of them enough to think, "well, you know that they'll protect their names hardcore, so they wouldn't be allowing a product to use their name if it didn't have some benefit..."
]]>Note: I am not arguing that surgeons cannot know about nutrition, or that surgeons cannot comment on internal medicine. They received much of the same training as internal med docs and are generally a highly qualified bunch. I just don't go to my ENT for skin issues, and I wouldn't want my GP to do a bypass surgery.
]]>I believe that because BBB is a for-profit, non-government agency, is why you almost never read Consumerist.com recommending them, or even mention them as a solution.
]]>This looks a lot like one scammer suing a battalion of scammers. Look , if you're stupid enough to believe that you can take a pill and reverse aging ,then you are plenty stupid enough to fall for the old hidden terms and conditions hustle that these guys pull. In fact ,I'm sure that their business plan is counting on that very fact.
That said , I agree with Djanes up above when he/she says that it's irresponsible to make these wild ass claims about this gunk. Not to mention cruel. Holding out this stuff as a magic bullet was just the spark that some of these parasites needed to scam the hell out of trusting (but stupid) people with credit cards and then run 'fer the hills when demand drops or the feds get wise.
]]>Robert Kennedy
]]>And if you think that will ever ... guess again. If you think getting universal healthcare is nearly impossible, well, that's nothing compared to repealing DSHEA.
]]>Clever.
>_<
]]>Just a less obvious way of saying douche bag
]]>is "deutsche bank" the new "hoople-head?"
]]>Maybe if people weren't so into doing whatever some deutsche bank television personality tells them, they wouldn't fall for scams using the names of those same personalities.
]]>